Super Types

ComicAttack.net Salutes PEZ!

In our lives we all have those comfort items. Maybe it’s putting on an album like Cheap Date by The Coral or playing a good old SNK Neo-Geo videogame like Metal Slug or Sengoku. For many though, it comes in the form of tiny sugar-candy pieces that come from the neck of a character, normally a superhero or cartoon, called PEZ!

Today here at ComicAttack.net, I am saluting the PEZ dispenser! PEZ over the many years have produced a number of comic-related dispensers: Batman, Spider-Man, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Garfield, Iron Man, Hulk, Wolverine, Popeye, Astrix and friends, Casper, Wonder Woman, Thor, Green Hornet, the Peanuts gang, Dragon Ball Z, Hello Kitty and so many more (not to mention the cartoon/sci-fi related such as the endless Disney characters, Gundam, Star Trek, Star Wars, etc.).

PEZ was invented in Vienna, Austria in 1927 by Edward Haas, who developed PEZ as mints for smokers. The mints were originally sold in little containers but Haas wanted something better, and in 1948 he developed a small dispenser that looked like a cigarette lighter, only it dispensed the little mints. Haas’s little mints were selling but not to his satisfaction, so he decided to look overseas at the huge Post-World War II American market. He unleashed PEZ here stateside but with one change- he made them into fruit flavors, which took off fast in America. To continue marketing he decided to next release a dispenser that would be modeled after a licensed character to increase sales, and in 1958 the first character dispenser was made: the world famous comic-strip character Popeye. Popeye proved to be a huge seller and in a short time, dozens of characters would become dispensers.

Still today, 52 years after the first character dispenser, comic characters rule the PEZ world with a brand new line of Marvel Superhero ones being issued this past year and Batman ones the year before. So here is a big old “Cheers!”, to a classic favorite for so many people! Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna pop some PEZ and read some DC Strange Adventures reprints. Check out these swank comic-related PEZ dispensers below:

Marvel Superhero PEZ issued this past year.

Famous European Comic 'Astrix' and his friends.

There is nothing I wish I owned more then this Casper one.

Batman ones issued around the time of 'The Dark Knight'.

You can never too many Garfeild PEZ.

The Hello Kitty Collection for all you manga fnas out there.

These 'Gundam' ones from Japan are pretty sweet too.

America's favorite cartoon family The Simpsons got their own too!

They have to have a Snoopy Red Baron one out there, I hope.

Popeye, the first character PEZ dispenser ever.

The Smurfs tear it up, from a comic strip to the cartoon that made them famous to even PEZ.

[…] many cross-marketing moves in the world of entertainment. Sometimes they are genius, like making PEZ dispensers of comic book characters. Other times they miss the mark, like putting an image of a character on […]